Often, the germ of a news story will circulate on TikTok long before facts have been verified by a traditional journalistic source. In some ways, this has been a positive. The democratization of information allows marginalized voices a platform for viewpoints that have traditionally been undervalued. However, the amplification that these platforms provide is not always positive, and it often proves to be misleading—or out-and-out false. Indeed, sometimes (if not often) social media gets it wrong.

A moment is kairotic when something happens that couldn’t happen at any other time or place. As writers, we might recognize a kairotic moment and seize the opportunity to put our ideas out there, or we might try to create a kairotic moment by generating a sense of urgency and significance in our audience about an issue or topic.